Stimulating Brain Health

Just like with training, when we stress our muscles, we must use our brain by pushing it a bit to reach new limits, but not too much to hurt it. To paraphrase the great singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, if we’re not busy being born, we’re busy dying. This sums up the remedy for optimal brain function throughout life. This use comes in the form of sending a variety of sensations into the brain from the body. This can be accomplished through various means:

 

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  • Physical stimulation. Every step we take, each stroke we make, influences many different brain areas significantly. Even a physical massage can provide great stimulation for the brain, as can walking barefoot.
  • Auditory stimulation.The best example is listening to enjoyable music, which may stimulate all the brain’s areas.
  • Visual stimulation.Even taking in the sights during a workout is a great exercise for the brain.
  • Avoid stressful stimulations. Try to keep away from annoying sounds, sights, smells, and environmental factors (such as running or biking in a crowded urban setting, with all that traffic noise and vehicular air pollution).

Diminished brain function can result from too little or the wrong kind of stimulation. It’s estimated that one in four people in the United States suffers from some form of mental or emotional disorder, also known as brain injury. Many more have diminished brain function, which is often temporary and can be corrected by providing the brain with sufficient stimulation. Human error is a common result of diminished brain function, and is the cause of the majority of cycling, automobile, airplane, rail, boating, and other tragic accidents reported in the popular press every day. Medical mistakes, which kill and maim millions of people, are also usually due to human error. Whether it’s poor memory, such as not remembering that phone call you wanted to make, or getting lost in your own neighborhood due to a serious cognitive condition such as Alzheimer’s, in most cases these problems are preventable through proper food and nutrition, stress regulation, and lifestyle. And the idea isn’t just to avoid cognitive problems—you want your brain to function at a high level until you die!